[FREE IRAN Project] In The Spirit Of Cyrus The GreatViews expressed here are not necessarily the views & opinions of ActivistChat.com. Comments are unmoderated. Abusive remarks may be deleted. ActivistChat.com retains the rights to all content/IP info in in this forum and may re-post content elsewhere.

Rejecting Any Kind of Talks with Islamofascist Based On Moral Clarity Principles and ActivistChat 2006 Guideline

Rejecting U.S. Detente Policy With Any Kind Of Evil Islamofascists (Enemy Of Freedom)

cyrus wrote:

An Unwise U.S. Private Talks with Islamofascists In Iran ?
= U.S. Detente With Any Kind Of Evil Islamofascists ?
= Insults to Freedom-Loving American and Iranian People
= Betrayal Of Freedom
= Betrayal Of Free Society
= Betrayal Of Secular Democracy
= Betrayal Of Human Rights

Lack Of Moral Clarity In US Policy and Strategy is the source of problems in Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan . What is Moral Clarity means regarding Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan?

1) US should have helped to remove Islamist regime in Iran after regime change in Afghanistan before removing Sadam.
2) US should have pushed for creating Free Society and Secular democracy before setting up election in both Iraq and Afghanistan similar to what US did in west Germany after second world war.
3) US should have considered all Islamic movements and Parties as Islamofascist of some sort and should not allow them to exist under US military occupation.
4) US should not have trusted, supported the EU3 Nuclear Deals with Iran. EU3 appeasement policy is responsible for today security council crisis .
5)

Amir Taheri wrote:

The U.S. decision here may be even worse than a mistake; it may be unnecessary. And, as Talleyrand noted almost 200 years ago, in politics doing something that is not necessary is worse than making a mistake.

6) US should not follow appeasement policy towards China and Russia.

What US Bush Admin should do to get out of Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan mess:

Over the past 27 years the Islamic regime's agents, courts, judges and vigilantes have all committed acts of: murder, stoning, torture, assault, theft, destruction of property, arson, perjury, falsification of testimonials and material evidence, illegal surveillance, kidnapping, rape, blackmail, fraud, obstruction of justice, conspiracy to commit all of the above crimes, cover-ups and every other form of butchery and depredation

- Call urgently on the UN and leaders of the free world to set up a committee to investigate the involvement of the clerical regime in crimes against women, crimes of conspiracy to commit genocide and crimes against humanity according to the principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and established International Law.
- Demanding from Free world governments to declare the Islamic Clerical Regime of Iran as illegitimate and unfit to govern and therefore call for a free referendum to be held in Iran now by well-respected international organizations.
- Demanding top level regime officials to be investigated and prosecuted by respected International Courts for genocide and many other crimes against humanity.
- Demanding to apply U.S. Constitution, Second Amendment for freedom-loving Iranian people case right (A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.)
- Demanding to support morally and financially arming and training freedom-loving Iranian women for self defense and liberation movement for Free Society, Secular Democracy and Free Referendum after Islamic regime change in Iran.
- The US government should release part of 37 billion dollars fund for military training 200,000 Iranian youth for freeing their homeland.

- Helping to set up election among Iranian oppositions outside Iran to create leadership council and Parliament.
- US should follow a policy of Arming and Training Freedom-Loving Iranian Women and Men for self defense against Islamofascist Mullahs or supporting to send massive International Peace keepers to Iran for protecting the Freedom and Freedom-loving Iranian women to avoid another genocide by IslamoFacists who talk and act like Hitler.
to Arm and Train freedom loving Iranian people who are committed to the following principles:
1.The "War on Terror" is UNWINNABLE and the world peace can not be achieved as long as the Unelected Islamists Terror and Torture Masters are in power in Iran. The terror state and fear society can not create peace and stability.
2. Iranian people can decide about Nuclear Energy, Nuclear Research and Atomic Bomb after the regime change when they have established stable secular democracy and FREE society until then Iran should avoid any kind of Nuclear research program, resulting to acquire Atomic Bomb, under Islamist regime control.
3. Territorial integrity and national sovereignty of Iran.
4. Complete separation of religion from the State.
5. Acceptance of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
6. Free, open and democratic referendum to elect the type of the new Government of Iran in the post-IRI era.

- Prepare to destroy all IslamoFacists Militia in the region without any Conesus by EU3 appeasers or others in UN.
- Setup qualified Iraqi Secular Government in Iraq by selecting Iraqi not based on election result with promise of future election in next 4 to 6 years when there is a free society in Iraq. Dissolve all religious Militia forces ……

There is a big gap and contradiction between what US says in public and what US do as part of private and secret meetings ....

cyrus wrote:

United States Policy Toward Iran

R. Nicholas Burns Under Secretary, Political Affairs
Term of Appointment: 03/17/2005 to present

Opening Statement before the House International Relations Committee
Washington, DC
March 8, 2006

Thank you Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Lantos and distinguished Members of the Committee for this opportunity to discuss the United States’ policy toward Iran.

Let me begin by noting that this Committee is surely right to focus on U.S. policy toward Iran at this time. Successive U.S. administrations have recognized that Iran’s regime poses a profound threat to U.S. interests in the Middle East and more broadly across the globe. Over the past six months, however, since the August 2005 inauguration of President Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad, this threat has intensified as Iran’s approach to the world has become even more radical. Today, the Iranian leadership is actively working against all that the U.S. and our allies desire for the region – peace in Lebanon, peace between Israel and the Palestinians, and an end to terrorism. In fact, no country stands more resolutely opposed to our hope for peace and freedom in the Middle East than Iran.

Iran’s leadership directly threatens vital American interests in four distinct and grave areas:

its pursuit of a nuclear weapons capability;
its role as the "Central Banker" in directing and funding terror;
its determination to dominate the Middle East as the most powerful state in the Persian Gulf region; and finally,
its repression of the democratic hopes of the Iranian people.

Crafting an effective response to this Iranian threat is as important as any challenge America faces in the world today. It is critical that we succeed. The endurance of the Iranian regime and its extremist policies and the alarming stridency of its leaders, who have spent more than a quarter-century leading chants of "Death to America," mean that inaction or failure is simply not an option. For this reason, President Bush and Secretary Rice have placed the highest priority on opposing Iran’s policies across the board in the greater Middle East region.

The dangers posed by the Iranian regime are complex and diverse, and they necessitate an equally multi-faceted and sophisticated American response. We have constructed a new and comprehensive policy that is designed to prevent Tehran from achieving each of its objectives – and as the issue of Iran’s nuclear ambitions moves this week to the United Nations Security Council, it is clear that we are on the right track.

As Secretary Rice reported to this Committee two weeks ago, our policy toward Iran is clear and focused. We seek to work within a broad international coalition of countries to deny Iran a nuclear weapons capability; to stop its sponsorship of terrorism in the region and around the world; to coalesce with Arab governments, our European allies and friends from across the world to blunt Tehran’s regional ambitions; and finally to extend support to the Iranian people, especially the millions of young Iranians who suffer due to the regime’s repression and economic misrule and crave opportunities to connect with the wider world. I will review each of these essential components of our policy, and finish by offering my thoughts on the ways in which Congress can enhance U.S. efforts to oppose the Iranian regime.

Amir Taheri
was born in Iran and educated in Tehran, London and Paris. Between 1980 and 1984 he was Middle East editor for the London Sunday Times. Taheri has been a contributor to the International Herald Tribune since 1980. He has also written for The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and The Washington Post. Taheri has published nine books some of which have been translated into 20 languages, and In 1988 Publishers'' Weekly in New York chose his study of Islamist terrorism, "Holy Terror", as one of The Best Books of The Year. He has been a columnist Asharq Alawsat since 1987
Previous Articles
Iraq Three Years Later: A Mixed Balance Sheet
Thailand: A New Destination for Professional Jihadists
In Iran: British Philosopher Versus Germen Philosopher
Iraqis need a new face and a fresh start
Seeking Censorship in the Name of Dialogue
Iran: the Other Clock is Ticking
Clinton's Angel and McCain's Demon: Iran Divides the Davos Crowd
Optimists in the East, Pessimists in the West
Ahmadinejad Has Won the First Round, But Will He Win the Match
Iraq: Three Reasons for Optimism, But Dangers Still Ahead

Barring a last minute hitch Iran and the United States are expected to begin talks on what they have both called “measures to benefit the Iraqi people.” The euphemism is unlikely to deceive anyone. What Tehran and Washington are really interested in is to find out each other’s true intentions in Iraq.

There is no doubt that both Iran and the United States have benefited from the demise of the Baathist regime under Saddam Hussein. The US has eliminated an enemy that it had wounded but not killed in 1991, something that Machiavelli had warned against almost five centuries ago. With Iraq likely to have a pluralist regime in which Shiites are a majority, Iran may no longer face a coalition of Sunni Arab regimes determined to challenge it in the region.

But while US and Iranian interests in Iraq converge up to a point, the two powers have diametrically opposed visions when it comes to the future of Iraq , indeed of the entire Middle East .

The US wants a democratic and pro-West Iraq with a capitalist market-based economy, and open to the new globalisation trends. In his better moments President George W Bush has even spoken of turning Iraq into a model for the entire Arab world, indeed for all Muslim countries.

And that, of course, is indirect competition with Iran which claims that its own system is the ideal one for all Muslims.

Iran wants an Iraqi regime that adopts at least some aspects of Khomeinism if only to prove that the Islamic Republic in Tehran is not an historic anomaly. The Tehran leadership is also concerned that the emergence of a Shiite-dominated democracy next door may well inspire a democratic revolution in Iran as well. With he centre of Shiite theological authority clearly shifting to Najaf , Iran ’s rulers may risk losing the religious card that they have played for the past 27 years.

The crucial question in regional politics now is whether Iraq, and beyond it the Middle East, will be reshaped the way US wants it or remoulded as Iran ’s Khomeinist leaders have dreamed of since 1979.

It is against that background that it is important to know what Iran would actually bring to the table when, and if, the promised talks

materialize.

Iran has already scored a point simply by being invited by the US for talks. Although Iran did nothing to liberate Iraq from Saddam Hussein, this invitation bestows on it a stature that only a liberating power would normally have. For example, at the end of the Second World War no one invited Switzerland or Poland , as neighbours of Germany , to discuss its future.

Iran has scored yet another point by positioning itself as a power speaking for the Iraqi people. The leader of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), Abdul-Aziz Hakim has helped Iran’s manoeuvre by issuing a verbal “invitation” to enter the talks almost as a protector of the people of Iraq. The fact that Hakim and his party have been supported by Iran for more than a quarter of a century does not diminish the importance of that move.

The Iranian strategy is clear from the outset. Foreign Minister Manuchehr Motakki has said that Iran ’s chief priority is to discuss the withdrawal of the US-led coalition forces from Iraq .

Motakki knows that the US and its allies are in Iraq under a United Nations’ mandate that will run out in December. He also knows that that mandate cannot be renewed without the consent of the newly-elected Iraqi parliament and government. Finally, he also knows that President George W Bush is under pressure from both Democrats and Republicans to bring the Iraqi episode to an end . So , when the Americans and their allies start to leave, as they are certain to do later this year, Iran would be able to pretend that it was its efforts that ended “the occupation.”

Iran , however, has more important ambitions in Iraq . Strategically, it sees post-Saddam Iraq as a corridor through which it can communicate with Syria and Lebanon which it considers as part of its broader glacis. In fact, once Tehran ’s influence is established in Iraq as it is in Syria and Lebanon , Iran would be able to project power in the Levant for the first time since the early 7th century when the Persian Empire under Khosrow Parviz drove the Byzantines out of Mesopotamia and what is now Syria .

It is no accident that scholars in Tehran have just rediscovered the set of agreements that Iran had signed with the Ottoman Empire in the 19th century. Known as the

Erzerum treaties, these documents give Iran a droit de regard (the right of oversight) over Iraq’s principal Shiite centres of Najaf , Karbala and Kazemayn (now a suburb of Baghdad ).

The agreements also enable Iran to take “appropriate action”, a code-word for military intervention, if it felt that its security, or the access of Iranian pilgrims to “holy places”, was being threatened by the presence of foreign hostile forces in southern Iraq.

If implemented those agreements could lead to the emergence of an Iranian administration in the “holy cities” and an Iranian veto on key aspects of Iraq ’s foreign policy.

Iran has already used those agreements to persuade the new Iraqi government to sign an agreement under which more than 600,000 Iranian pilgrims would be able to visit Iraq each year with little control from the Iraqi authorities.

The second set of documents that Tehran is now dusting up is known as the Algiers Accords, negotiated and signed in Algiers, Geneva , Tehran and Baghdad between 1975 and 1976 . These give Iran and Iraq shared sovereignty over the Shatt al-Arab estuary which constitutes Iraq’s principal outlet to the open seas. The agreements, signed by Saddam Hussein as a tactical ploy to end Iranian support for the Kurds in the 1970s, would, if fully implemented, give Iran a chokehold on Iraq ’s foreign trade, including oil exports.

Iran does not want the US to fail in Iraq. It wants the US to succeed in eliminating all possibility of a new Sunni-dominated regime being installed in Baghdad .

But Iran wants the US to succeed at the highest possible cost, both in blood and treasure.

It is a mystery why Washington wants to give Tehran a place at the high table in Iraq . It is certain that the Islamic Republic will continue doing whatever it can to make life difficult for the US-led coalition. The supply of new and more lethal explosives, smuggled into Iraq from Iran , partly via Syria is unlikely to dry up. Nor is Tehran likely to end the training programmes launched by its Lebanese Hezbollah clients for Iraqi militants.

The decision to involve Iran in Iraqi affairs is likely to anger the United States regional allies who have never discounted the possibility of an Irano -American deal that might leave them in the lurch. The Arab states will also be concerned about the possibility of Iraq’s Arab identity being diluted as a result of Iranian intervention.

The US may have made this strange move because of the experiment in Afghanistan where talks with Iran did help speed up the defeat of the Taliban and the creation of a new regime in Kabul .

But Iraq is not Afghanistan if only because it offers far more scope for Iranian mischief-making. The invitation to Iraq is also likely to encourage Iran in its defiance of the United Nations on the nuclear issue. After all if Iran is treated as a major power in one domain it cannot be “bullied” as a weakling in another.

Has the Bush administration made its fist major mistake with regard to Iraq ? It is too early to tell. But this decision may be even worse than a mistake; it may be unnecessary. And, as Talleyrand noted almost 200 years ago, in politics doing something that is not necessary is worse than making a mistake.

Barring a last-minute hitch, Iran and the United States are expected to begin talks on what they have both called "measures to benefit the Iraqi people." The euphemism is unlikely to deceive anyone. What Tehran and Washington really want is to find out each other's true intentions in Iraq.

Both powers have benefited from the demise of the Ba'athist regime. The United States eliminated an enemy that it had wounded but not killed in 1991. With Iraq likely to have a pluralist regime in which Shiites are a majority, Iran may no longer face a coalition of Sunni Arab regimes determined to challenge it in the region.

But the two powers have diametrically opposed visions when it comes to the future of Iraq - indeed, of the entire Middle East. The United States wants a democratic and pro-West Iraq with an open, market-based economy. In his better moments, President Bush has even spoken of turning Iraq into a model for the entire Arab world, indeed for all Muslim countries. That, of course, is in direct competition with Iran - which claims that its own system is the ideal one for all Muslims.

Iran wants an Iraqi regime that adopts at least some aspects of Khomeinism. The Tehran leadership also worries that the emergence of a Shiite-dominated democracy next door may well inspire a democratic revolution in Iran. Plus, with the center of Shiite theological authority clearly shifting to Najaf in Iraq, Iran's rulers may risk losing the religious card that they have played for the past 27 years.

The crucial question in regional politics now is whether Iraq, and beyond it the Middle East, will be reshaped the way America hopes, or remolded as Iran's Khomeinist leaders have dreamed of since 1979.

If the promised talks materialize, what would Iran actually bring to the table?

The U.S. invitation to the talks has already scored a point for Tehran. It did nothing to liberate Iraq from Saddam Hussein, yet this invitation bestows on it a stature that only a liberating power would normally have.

Iran has scored yet another point by positioning itself as a power speaking for the Iraqi people. The leader of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, Abdul-Aziz Hakim, has helped Iran's maneuver by issuing a verbal "invitation" to enter the talks almost as a protector of the people of Iraq. The fact that Hakim and his party have been supported by Iran for more than a quarter of a century does not diminish the importance of that move.

The Iranian strategy is clear. Foreign Minister Manuchehr Motakki has said that Iran's chief priority is to discuss the withdrawal of Coalition forces from Iraq. Thus, when the Americans and their allies start to leave, as they are certain to do later this year, Iran would be able to pretend that it was its efforts that ended "the occupation."

Worse, Iran has larger ambitions in Iraq. It sees the nation as a corridor through which it can communicate with Syria and Lebanon, which it considers as part of its broader glacis. In fact, if Tehran's influence is established in Iraq as it is in Syria and Lebanon, Iran would be able to project power in the Levant for the first time since the early 7th century.

It is no accident that scholars in Tehran have just rediscovered agreements that Iran signed with the Ottoman Empire in the 19th century. Known as the Erzerum treaties, these gave Iran a right of oversight over Iraq's principal Shiite centers of Najaf, Karbala and Kazemayn. They also enabled Iran to take "appropriate action" (i.e., military intervention) if it felt that its security, or the access of Iranian pilgrims to "holy places," was threatened by the presence of foreign hostile forces in southern Iraq.

If applied today, those agreements could lead to the emergence of an Iranian administration in the "holy cities" and an Iranian veto on key aspects of Iraq's foreign policy. And Tehran has already used those 19th-century accords to persuade the new Iraqi government to sign an agreement under which more than 600,000 Iranian pilgrims a year will be able to visit Iraq with little control from the Iraqi authorities.

And now Tehran is dusting off a second set of documents - the Algiers Accords, negotiated and signed in Algiers, Geneva, Tehran and Baghdad between 1975 and 1976. These agreements, signed by Saddam Hussein as a tactical ploy to end Iranian support for the Kurds in the 1970s, give Iran and Iraq shared sovereignty over the Shatt al-Arab estuary, which constitutes Iraq's principal outlet to the open seas. If fully implemented, that would give Iran a chokehold on Iraq's foreign trade, including oil exports.

Tehran does not want the United States to fail utterly in Iraq. It wants the Americans to eliminate all possibility of a new Sunni-dominated regime in Baghdad. But it also wants the Americans to pay the highest possible cost, both in blood and treasure.

It is a mystery why Washington wants to give Tehran a place at the high table in Iraq. The Islamic Republic will certainly continue doing whatever it can to make life difficult for the Coalition. The supply of new and more lethal explosives smuggled into Iraq from Iran is unlikely to dry up. Nor is Tehran likely to end the training programs launched by its Lebanese Hezbollah clients for Iraqi militants.

The decision to involve Iran in Iraqi affairs is also likely to anger America's regional allies, who have never discounted the possibility of an Irano-American deal that would leave them in the lurch. The Arab states will also worry about Iraq's Arab identity being diluted as a result of Iranian intervention.

The U.S. decision here may be even worse than a mistake; it may be unnecessary. And, as Talleyrand noted almost 200 years ago, in politics doing something that is not necessary is worse than making a mistake.

Iranian author and journalist Amir Taheri is a member of Benador Associates.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - White House national security adviser Stephen Hadley expressed skepticism on Friday about Iran's offer to talk to the United States about Iraq, saying it may be an attempt to divert pressure over Tehran's nuclear ambitions.

Hadley told a group of reporters his concern was that the Iran offer was "simply a device by the Iranians to divert pressure that they are feeling in New York," where members of the U.N. Security Council are debating a statement aimed at reining in Iran's nuclear program.

The United States offered last November to hold talks with Iran about U.S. allegations that Iranians were shipping components for homemade bombs into Iraq for use against Iraqi and U.S. targets and otherwise acting to provoke instability.

Iran initially rejected the offer. But Tehran shifted course on Thursday and said it was willing to open a dialogue with the United States on Iraq.

Hadley said the United States was still prepared to hold talks with Iran but reiterated they would be limited to U.S. concerns that Iran was stirring up trouble in Iraq, not used as a way to open negotiations over Iran's nuclear program.

The U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, would be the U.S. representative for any such talks.

U.S. officials in Iraq accused Iran again on Friday of meddling in Iraq's internal affairs, saying the Islamic Republic was carrying out "unhelpful activities" there.

Hadley said that by offering to open a dialogue with Washington, Iran appeared to be "trying to drive a wedge between the United States" and its allies at a time when the international community is trying to stay united and force Iran to give up its nuclear program.

By accepting to meet with Iran’s Islamofascist regime regarding Iraq the Bush administration's moral clarity, honesty and integrity will be damaged.
US can not win the “war on terror” and provide ultimate security for the United States and freedom-loving people of the world unless we are truthful towards the principles of free society, secular democracy , freedom and honor our words.

Private meeting with Islamofascist illegitimate regime regarding any subject with any excuse contradicting the following correct statements by US leadership unless Islamofascist is willing to step down peacefully.
The correct policy is failing when the correct Actions does not follow the correct statement .

Quote:

http://news.ft.com/cms/s/84eb469a-b50e-11da-aa90-0000779e2340.html

Condoleezza Rice on Thursday raised the diplomatic temperature over the nuclear stand-off with Iran, accusing the country of lying about its activities and again calling it a “central banker to terrorism”.
The US secretary of state was speaking in Sydney at the start of a three-day official visit to Australia, which will include talks with Canberra and Japan over the vexed Iranian issue.

Ms Rice described Iran as a “troubled state” where an “unelected few repress the desires of its population”.

The same is true of Iran, a nation now held hostage by a small clerical elite that is isolating and repressing its people.The regime in that country sponsors terrorists in the Palestinian territories and in Lebanon -- and that must come to an end. The Iranian government is defying the world with its nuclear ambitions -- and the nations of the world must not permit the Iranian regime to gain nuclear weapons. America will continue to rally the world to confront these threats. And tonight, let me speak directly to the citizens of Iran: America respects you, and we respect your country. We respect your right to choose your own future and win your own freedom. And our nation hopes one day to be the closest of friends with a free and democratic Iran.

Pleasing Iraqi Islamists is wrong approach and waste of time ..... Flip Flop is a wrong model.

cyrus wrote:

ActivistChat 2006 Guideline Framework

1. The "War on Terror" is UNWINNABLE and the world peace can not be achieved as long as the Unelected Islamists Terror and Torture Masters are in power in Iran. The terror state and fear society can not create peace and stability.

2. Iranian people can decide about Nuclear Energy, Nuclear Research and Atomic Bomb after the regime change when they have established stable secular democracy and FREE society until then Iran should avoid any kind of Nuclear research program, resulting to acquire Atomic Bomb, under Islamist regime control.

3. Territorial integrity and national sovereignty of Iran.

4. Complete separation of religion from the State.

5. Acceptance of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

6. Free, open and democratic referendum to elect the type of the new Government of Iran in the post-IRI era.

7. Minimum standard of living for all citizens of Iran and equal opportunity for all citizens to benefit from country's national wealth.

8. To avoid nuclear war, our message to Iranian people inside Iran: General Strike Now, our message to Security Forces (Police, Pasdaran and Military) must act now for regime change and replacing it with Free society and Secular Democracy. The Iranian people have already spoken by boycotting Elections. The Armed forces must choose between defending and serving the people or serving Mullahs. This is up to armed and security forces to choose between SHAME and HONOR, serving Mullahs or their Sisters, Brothers, Fathers & Mothers who pay their salary.
To avoid war Iranian people of all ages do not have any choice other than be prepared to fight to free their homeland from Viruses of Iranian society whether the armed forces serve them or serve the enemy of freedom and free society. Iranian people should be prepared for final battle for freeing their homeland and must not forget that their FOREVER leader Cyrus the Great died in battlefield in 530 BC at the age of 60 and not in bed.

9. Work within high standard of code of ethics not to fight with other political groups or fellow FREE Iran Activists unless they are violating one of the key principles or moving against the concept of Free Society and secular democracy.

10. We are Free Iran Activists and Watch Group monitoring high government officials, Journalists , writers and scholars words and their actions based on the following direction from James Madison:
"If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men! over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions. "
The Federalist No. 51 (James Madison).

11. Support and promote people, groups and leadership who are making positive contributions for Human Rights, Regime Change in Iran, Free
Iran, Free Society and Secular democracy from Center, Right and Left.

Last edited by cyrus on Sun Mar 26, 2006 12:49 pm; edited 9 times in total

WASHINGTON - A top commander of U.S. forces expressed doubt Sunday that negotiations between the United States and Iran over Iraq would help bring peace and stability in the Middle East.

"I don't have a lot of confidence that these will turn out to be productive, but I could be wrong," said Gen. George W. Casey, the top commander in Iraq.

"They're playing, I think, a very delicate balancing act," he said of Iran. "On the one hand, they want a stable neighbor. On the other hand, I don't believe they want to see us succeed here."

The Bush administration agreed last week to talk to Iranian officials about Iraq after a nearly three-decade break in diplomatic ties between the two countries. U.S. intelligence strongly suspects Iran has been arming Iraqi Shiite militia and some insurgent groups.

Casey said on "Fox News Sunday" he didn't have much faith in the talks but that it was a "political call." Any negotiations should involve the Iraqis' use of "improvised explosive device technology" against coalition forces that he says are coming from Iran.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush on Tuesday said the United States wants talks with Iran to make clear that attempts to spread sectarian violence in Iraq were unacceptable.

Bush has said he views Iran as a threat, and the United States suspects Iran of using its nuclear program to develop a bomb, which Tehran denies.

But the United States has said it is open to talks with Iran narrowly about Iraq. "This is a way for us to make it clear to them that, about what's right or wrong in their activities inside of Iraq," Bush said at a news conference.

He reiterated that negotiations on Iran's nuclear program would be conducted in an international forum. "Our job is to make sure that this international will remains strong and united so that we can solve this issue diplomatically," Bush said.

Rejecting Any Kind of Talks with Islamofascist Based On Moral Clarity Principles and ActivistChat 2006 Guideline
More than 27 years EU3 talked with Islamofascists in Iran, tried to appease them for bloody oil deals .... please show us the good results?

Any Kind of Talks with Islamofascist and Appeasing Islamofascist for any excuse is a wrong signal and giving legitimacy to those who are Terror and Torture Masters.
As long as the Islamofascists in Iran is not ready to surrender terms to freedom-loving Iranian people wish list U.S. as a leader of liberation movement for freedom should not agree to any talks.
How American people would feel regarding talks with Al Qaeda, this is the same thing?

Appeasing Islamofascist and talks with them will fail as it did with Iraqi Islamofascist, Hamas ....

Barring a last-minute hitch, Iran and the United States are expected to begin talks on what they have both called "measures to benefit the Iraqi people." The euphemism is unlikely to deceive anyone. What Tehran and Washington really want is to find out each other's true intentions in Iraq.

Both powers have benefited from the demise of the Ba'athist regime. The United States eliminated an enemy that it had wounded but not killed in 1991. With Iraq likely to have a pluralist regime in which Shiites are a majority, Iran may no longer face a coalition of Sunni Arab regimes determined to challenge it in the region.

But the two powers have diametrically opposed visions when it comes to the future of Iraq - indeed, of the entire Middle East. The United States wants a democratic and pro-West Iraq with an open, market-based economy. In his better moments, President Bush has even spoken of turning Iraq into a model for the entire Arab world, indeed for all Muslim countries. That, of course, is in direct competition with Iran - which claims that its own system is the ideal one for all Muslims.

Iran wants an Iraqi regime that adopts at least some aspects of Khomeinism. The Tehran leadership also worries that the emergence of a Shiite-dominated democracy next door may well inspire a democratic revolution in Iran. Plus, with the center of Shiite theological authority clearly shifting to Najaf in Iraq, Iran's rulers may risk losing the religious card that they have played for the past 27 years.

The crucial question in regional politics now is whether Iraq, and beyond it the Middle East, will be reshaped the way America hopes, or remolded as Iran's Khomeinist leaders have dreamed of since 1979.

If the promised talks materialize, what would Iran actually bring to the table?

The U.S. invitation to the talks has already scored a point for Tehran. It did nothing to liberate Iraq from Saddam Hussein, yet this invitation bestows on it a stature that only a liberating power would normally have.

Iran has scored yet another point by positioning itself as a power speaking for the Iraqi people. The leader of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, Abdul-Aziz Hakim, has helped Iran's maneuver by issuing a verbal "invitation" to enter the talks almost as a protector of the people of Iraq. The fact that Hakim and his party have been supported by Iran for more than a quarter of a century does not diminish the importance of that move.

The Iranian strategy is clear. Foreign Minister Manuchehr Motakki has said that Iran's chief priority is to discuss the withdrawal of Coalition forces from Iraq. Thus, when the Americans and their allies start to leave, as they are certain to do later this year, Iran would be able to pretend that it was its efforts that ended "the occupation."

Worse, Iran has larger ambitions in Iraq. It sees the nation as a corridor through which it can communicate with Syria and Lebanon, which it considers as part of its broader glacis. In fact, if Tehran's influence is established in Iraq as it is in Syria and Lebanon, Iran would be able to project power in the Levant for the first time since the early 7th century.

It is no accident that scholars in Tehran have just rediscovered agreements that Iran signed with the Ottoman Empire in the 19th century. Known as the Erzerum treaties, these gave Iran a right of oversight over Iraq's principal Shiite centers of Najaf, Karbala and Kazemayn. They also enabled Iran to take "appropriate action" (i.e., military intervention) if it felt that its security, or the access of Iranian pilgrims to "holy places," was threatened by the presence of foreign hostile forces in southern Iraq.

If applied today, those agreements could lead to the emergence of an Iranian administration in the "holy cities" and an Iranian veto on key aspects of Iraq's foreign policy. And Tehran has already used those 19th-century accords to persuade the new Iraqi government to sign an agreement under which more than 600,000 Iranian pilgrims a year will be able to visit Iraq with little control from the Iraqi authorities.

And now Tehran is dusting off a second set of documents - the Algiers Accords, negotiated and signed in Algiers, Geneva, Tehran and Baghdad between 1975 and 1976. These agreements, signed by Saddam Hussein as a tactical ploy to end Iranian support for the Kurds in the 1970s, give Iran and Iraq shared sovereignty over the Shatt al-Arab estuary, which constitutes Iraq's principal outlet to the open seas. If fully implemented, that would give Iran a chokehold on Iraq's foreign trade, including oil exports.

Tehran does not want the United States to fail utterly in Iraq. It wants the Americans to eliminate all possibility of a new Sunni-dominated regime in Baghdad. But it also wants the Americans to pay the highest possible cost, both in blood and treasure.

It is a mystery why Washington wants to give Tehran a place at the high table in Iraq. The Islamic Republic will certainly continue doing whatever it can to make life difficult for the Coalition. The supply of new and more lethal explosives smuggled into Iraq from Iran is unlikely to dry up. Nor is Tehran likely to end the training programs launched by its Lebanese Hezbollah clients for Iraqi militants.

The decision to involve Iran in Iraqi affairs is also likely to anger America's regional allies, who have never discounted the possibility of an Irano-American deal that would leave them in the lurch. The Arab states will also worry about Iraq's Arab identity being diluted as a result of Iranian intervention.

The U.S. decision here may be even worse than a mistake; it may be unnecessary. And, as Talleyrand noted almost 200 years ago, in politics doing something that is not necessary is worse than making a mistake.

Iranian author and journalist Amir Taheri is a member of Benador Associates.

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration questioned on Wednesday the motives of Iran's Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in approving U.S.-proposed talks on Iraq, but did not shut the door entirely.

"It is a matter of curious timing," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said, suggesting Iran was trying to deflect international pressure from its nuclear programs now under criticial discussion at the United Nations.

While a "channel" for communication between the United States and Iran remains open, he said, no meetings have been scheduled.

Khamenei's statement on Tuesday was the first confirmation that he supports having talks. He also warned the United States must not try to "bully" Iran.

President Bush months ago initiated a diplomatic effort to hold talks with Iran over its activities in Iraq. The administration considers Iran meddlesome and accuses it of supporting insurgent militia with weapons.

When Iran last week signaled its willingess to talk, however, Bush's national security adviser, Steven J. Hadley, dismissed the overture as a play designed to divert pressure and attention from nuclear programs the United States and its European allies charge are designed to develop nuclear weapons.

In similar reaction on Wednesday, McCormack said: "I find it very interesting that the Iranian regime has chosen this particular time to seek to communicate with the United States government through this channel of communication, where this channel of communication has been open for some time."

The spokesman went on: "We think it has more to do with Iran's desire to decrease the pressure on the regime and to divert attention from the ongoing discussions about the topic of Iran's nuclear program that we're watching unfold up in New York.

"We think it has more to do with that and less to do with an actual desire to communicate with the United States government on issues concerning Iraq."

An Unwise U.S. Private Talks with Islamofascists In Iran ?
= U.S. Detente With Any Kind Of Evil Islamofascists ?
= Insults to Freedom-Loving American and Iranian People
= Betrayal Of Freedom
= Betrayal Of Free Society
= Betrayal Of Secular Democracy
= Betrayal Of Human Rights

Lack Of Moral Clarity In US Policy and Strategy is the source of problems in Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan . What is Moral Clarity means regarding Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan?

1) US should have helped to remove Islamist regime in Iran after regime change in Afghanistan before removing Sadam.
2) US should have pushed for creating Free Society and Secular democracy before setting up election in both Iraq and Afghanistan similar to what US did in west Germany after second world war.
3) US should have considered all Islamic movements and Parties as Islamofascist of some sort and should not allow them to exist under US military occupation.
4) US should not have trusted, supported the EU3 Nuclear Deals with Iran. EU3 appeasement policy is responsible for today security council crisis .
5)

Amir Taheri wrote:

The U.S. decision here may be even worse than a mistake; it may be unnecessary. And, as Talleyrand noted almost 200 years ago, in politics doing something that is not necessary is worse than making a mistake.

6) US should not follow appeasement policy towards China and Russia.

What US Bush Admin should do to get out of Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan mess:

Over the past 27 years the Islamic regime's agents, courts, judges and vigilantes have all committed acts of: murder, stoning, torture, assault, theft, destruction of property, arson, perjury, falsification of testimonials and material evidence, illegal surveillance, kidnapping, rape, blackmail, fraud, obstruction of justice, conspiracy to commit all of the above crimes, cover-ups and every other form of butchery and depredation

- Call urgently on the UN and leaders of the free world to set up a committee to investigate the involvement of the clerical regime in crimes against women, crimes of conspiracy to commit genocide and crimes against humanity according to the principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and established International Law.
- Demanding from Free world governments to declare the Islamic Clerical Regime of Iran as illegitimate and unfit to govern and therefore call for a free referendum to be held in Iran now by well-respected international organizations.
- Demanding top level regime officials to be investigated and prosecuted by respected International Courts for genocide and many other crimes against humanity.
- Demanding to apply U.S. Constitution, Second Amendment for freedom-loving Iranian people case right (A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.)
- Demanding to support morally and financially arming and training freedom-loving Iranian women for self defense and liberation movement for Free Society, Secular Democracy and Free Referendum after Islamic regime change in Iran.
- The US government should release part of 37 billion dollars fund for military training 200,000 Iranian youth for freeing their homeland.

- Helping to set up election among Iranian oppositions outside Iran to create leadership council and Parliament.
- US should follow a policy of Arming and Training Freedom-Loving Iranian Women and Men for self defense against Islamofascist Mullahs or supporting to send massive International Peace keepers to Iran for protecting the Freedom and Freedom-loving Iranian women to avoid another genocide by IslamoFacists who talk and act like Hitler.
to Arm and Train freedom loving Iranian people who are committed to the following principles:
1.The "War on Terror" is UNWINNABLE and the world peace can not be achieved as long as the Unelected Islamists Terror and Torture Masters are in power in Iran. The terror state and fear society can not create peace and stability.
2. Iranian people can decide about Nuclear Energy, Nuclear Research and Atomic Bomb after the regime change when they have established stable secular democracy and FREE society until then Iran should avoid any kind of Nuclear research program, resulting to acquire Atomic Bomb, under Islamist regime control.
3. Territorial integrity and national sovereignty of Iran.
4. Complete separation of religion from the State.
5. Acceptance of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
6. Free, open and democratic referendum to elect the type of the new Government of Iran in the post-IRI era.

- Prepare to destroy all IslamoFacists Militia in the region without any Conesus by EU3 appeasers or others in UN.
- Setup qualified Iraqi Secular Government in Iraq by selecting Iraqi not based on election result with promise of future election in next 4 to 6 years when there is a free society in Iraq. Dissolve all religious Militia forces ……

There is a big gap and contradiction between what US says in public and what US do as part of private and secret meetings ....

cyrus wrote:

United States Policy Toward Iran

R. Nicholas Burns Under Secretary, Political Affairs
Term of Appointment: 03/17/2005 to present

Opening Statement before the House International Relations Committee
Washington, DC
March 8, 2006

Thank you Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Lantos and distinguished Members of the Committee for this opportunity to discuss the United States’ policy toward Iran.

Let me begin by noting that this Committee is surely right to focus on U.S. policy toward Iran at this time. Successive U.S. administrations have recognized that Iran’s regime poses a profound threat to U.S. interests in the Middle East and more broadly across the globe. Over the past six months, however, since the August 2005 inauguration of President Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad, this threat has intensified as Iran’s approach to the world has become even more radical. Today, the Iranian leadership is actively working against all that the U.S. and our allies desire for the region – peace in Lebanon, peace between Israel and the Palestinians, and an end to terrorism. In fact, no country stands more resolutely opposed to our hope for peace and freedom in the Middle East than Iran.

Iran’s leadership directly threatens vital American interests in four distinct and grave areas:

its pursuit of a nuclear weapons capability;
its role as the "Central Banker" in directing and funding terror;
its determination to dominate the Middle East as the most powerful state in the Persian Gulf region; and finally,
its repression of the democratic hopes of the Iranian people.

Crafting an effective response to this Iranian threat is as important as any challenge America faces in the world today. It is critical that we succeed. The endurance of the Iranian regime and its extremist policies and the alarming stridency of its leaders, who have spent more than a quarter-century leading chants of "Death to America," mean that inaction or failure is simply not an option. For this reason, President Bush and Secretary Rice have placed the highest priority on opposing Iran’s policies across the board in the greater Middle East region.

The dangers posed by the Iranian regime are complex and diverse, and they necessitate an equally multi-faceted and sophisticated American response. We have constructed a new and comprehensive policy that is designed to prevent Tehran from achieving each of its objectives – and as the issue of Iran’s nuclear ambitions moves this week to the United Nations Security Council, it is clear that we are on the right track.

As Secretary Rice reported to this Committee two weeks ago, our policy toward Iran is clear and focused. We seek to work within a broad international coalition of countries to deny Iran a nuclear weapons capability; to stop its sponsorship of terrorism in the region and around the world; to coalesce with Arab governments, our European allies and friends from across the world to blunt Tehran’s regional ambitions; and finally to extend support to the Iranian people, especially the millions of young Iranians who suffer due to the regime’s repression and economic misrule and crave opportunities to connect with the wider world. I will review each of these essential components of our policy, and finish by offering my thoughts on the ways in which Congress can enhance U.S. efforts to oppose the Iranian regime.

Amir Taheri
was born in Iran and educated in Tehran, London and Paris. Between 1980 and 1984 he was Middle East editor for the London Sunday Times. Taheri has been a contributor to the International Herald Tribune since 1980. He has also written for The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and The Washington Post. Taheri has published nine books some of which have been translated into 20 languages, and In 1988 Publishers'' Weekly in New York chose his study of Islamist terrorism, "Holy Terror", as one of The Best Books of The Year. He has been a columnist Asharq Alawsat since 1987

Barring a last minute hitch Iran and the United States are expected to begin talks on what they have both called “measures to benefit the Iraqi people.” The euphemism is unlikely to deceive anyone. What Tehran and Washington are really interested in is to find out each other’s true intentions in Iraq.

There is no doubt that both Iran and the United States have benefited from the demise of the Baathist regime under Saddam Hussein. The US has eliminated an enemy that it had wounded but not killed in 1991, something that Machiavelli had warned against almost five centuries ago. With Iraq likely to have a pluralist regime in which Shiites are a majority, Iran may no longer face a coalition of Sunni Arab regimes determined to challenge it in the region.

But while US and Iranian interests in Iraq converge up to a point, the two powers have diametrically opposed visions when it comes to the future of Iraq , indeed of the entire Middle East .

The US wants a democratic and pro-West Iraq with a capitalist market-based economy, and open to the new globalisation trends. In his better moments President George W Bush has even spoken of turning Iraq into a model for the entire Arab world, indeed for all Muslim countries.

And that, of course, is indirect competition with Iran which claims that its own system is the ideal one for all Muslims.

Iran wants an Iraqi regime that adopts at least some aspects of Khomeinism if only to prove that the Islamic Republic in Tehran is not an historic anomaly. The Tehran leadership is also concerned that the emergence of a Shiite-dominated democracy next door may well inspire a democratic revolution in Iran as well. With he centre of Shiite theological authority clearly shifting to Najaf , Iran ’s rulers may risk losing the religious card that they have played for the past 27 years.

The crucial question in regional politics now is whether Iraq, and beyond it the Middle East, will be reshaped the way US wants it or remoulded as Iran ’s Khomeinist leaders have dreamed of since 1979.

It is against that background that it is important to know what Iran would actually bring to the table when, and if, the promised talks

materialize.

Iran has already scored a point simply by being invited by the US for talks. Although Iran did nothing to liberate Iraq from Saddam Hussein, this invitation bestows on it a stature that only a liberating power would normally have. For example, at the end of the Second World War no one invited Switzerland or Poland , as neighbours of Germany , to discuss its future.

Iran has scored yet another point by positioning itself as a power speaking for the Iraqi people. The leader of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), Abdul-Aziz Hakim has helped Iran’s manoeuvre by issuing a verbal “invitation” to enter the talks almost as a protector of the people of Iraq. The fact that Hakim and his party have been supported by Iran for more than a quarter of a century does not diminish the importance of that move.

The Iranian strategy is clear from the outset. Foreign Minister Manuchehr Motakki has said that Iran ’s chief priority is to discuss the withdrawal of the US-led coalition forces from Iraq .

Motakki knows that the US and its allies are in Iraq under a United Nations’ mandate that will run out in December. He also knows that that mandate cannot be renewed without the consent of the newly-elected Iraqi parliament and government. Finally, he also knows that President George W Bush is under pressure from both Democrats and Republicans to bring the Iraqi episode to an end . So , when the Americans and their allies start to leave, as they are certain to do later this year, Iran would be able to pretend that it was its efforts that ended “the occupation.”

Iran , however, has more important ambitions in Iraq . Strategically, it sees post-Saddam Iraq as a corridor through which it can communicate with Syria and Lebanon which it considers as part of its broader glacis. In fact, once Tehran ’s influence is established in Iraq as it is in Syria and Lebanon , Iran would be able to project power in the Levant for the first time since the early 7th century when the Persian Empire under Khosrow Parviz drove the Byzantines out of Mesopotamia and what is now Syria .

It is no accident that scholars in Tehran have just rediscovered the set of agreements that Iran had signed with the Ottoman Empire in the 19th century. Known as the

Erzerum treaties, these documents give Iran a droit de regard (the right of oversight) over Iraq’s principal Shiite centres of Najaf , Karbala and Kazemayn (now a suburb of Baghdad ).

The agreements also enable Iran to take “appropriate action”, a code-word for military intervention, if it felt that its security, or the access of Iranian pilgrims to “holy places”, was being threatened by the presence of foreign hostile forces in southern Iraq.

If implemented those agreements could lead to the emergence of an Iranian administration in the “holy cities” and an Iranian veto on key aspects of Iraq ’s foreign policy.

Iran has already used those agreements to persuade the new Iraqi government to sign an agreement under which more than 600,000 Iranian pilgrims would be able to visit Iraq each year with little control from the Iraqi authorities.

The second set of documents that Tehran is now dusting up is known as the Algiers Accords, negotiated and signed in Algiers, Geneva , Tehran and Baghdad between 1975 and 1976 . These give Iran and Iraq shared sovereignty over the Shatt al-Arab estuary which constitutes Iraq’s principal outlet to the open seas. The agreements, signed by Saddam Hussein as a tactical ploy to end Iranian support for the Kurds in the 1970s, would, if fully implemented, give Iran a chokehold on Iraq ’s foreign trade, including oil exports.

Iran does not want the US to fail in Iraq. It wants the US to succeed in eliminating all possibility of a new Sunni-dominated regime being installed in Baghdad .

But Iran wants the US to succeed at the highest possible cost, both in blood and treasure.

It is a mystery why Washington wants to give Tehran a place at the high table in Iraq . It is certain that the Islamic Republic will continue doing whatever it can to make life difficult for the US-led coalition. The supply of new and more lethal explosives, smuggled into Iraq from Iran , partly via Syria is unlikely to dry up. Nor is Tehran likely to end the training programmes launched by its Lebanese Hezbollah clients for Iraqi militants.

The decision to involve Iran in Iraqi affairs is likely to anger the United States regional allies who have never discounted the possibility of an Irano -American deal that might leave them in the lurch. The Arab states will also be concerned about the possibility of Iraq’s Arab identity being diluted as a result of Iranian intervention.

The US may have made this strange move because of the experiment in Afghanistan where talks with Iran did help speed up the defeat of the Taliban and the creation of a new regime in Kabul .

But Iraq is not Afghanistan if only because it offers far more scope for Iranian mischief-making. The invitation to Iraq is also likely to encourage Iran in its defiance of the United Nations on the nuclear issue. After all if Iran is treated as a major power in one domain it cannot be “bullied” as a weakling in another.

Has the Bush administration made its fist major mistake with regard to Iraq ? It is too early to tell. But this decision may be even worse than a mistake; it may be unnecessary. And, as Talleyrand noted almost 200 years ago, in politics doing something that is not necessary is worse than making a mistake.

Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, is dying of cancer. But he is convinced that his legacy will be glorious. He believes that thousands of his Revolutionary Guards intelligence officers effectively control southern Iraq, and that the rest of the country is at his mercy, since we present no challenge to them — even along the Iraq/Iran border, where they operate with impunity. They calmly plan their next major assault without having to worry about American retribution.

The mullahs have thousands of intelligence officers all over Iraq, as well as a hard core of Hezbollah terrorists — including the infamous Imadh Mughniyah, arguably the region’s most dangerous killer — and they control the major actors, from Zarqawi to Sadr to the Badr Brigades.

Khamenei and his top cronies believe they have effectively won. They think the U.S. is politically paralyzed, thanks to the relentless attacks of President Bush’s opponents and the five-year long internal debate about Iran policy, and thus there is no chance of an armed attack, even one limited to nuclear sites. They think Israel is similarly paralyzed by Sharon’s sudden departure and the triumph of their surrogate force, Hamas, in the Palestinian elections. They despise the Europeans, and hardly even bother to pretend to negotiate with them any more. They believe they have a strong strategic alliance with the Russians and they think they have the Chinese over a barrel, since the Chinese are so heavily dependent on Iranian oil. Recent statements from Beijing and Moscow regarding the chance of U.N. sanctions will have reinforced the Supreme Leader’s convictions.

Hapless in the Beltway
Above all, Khamenei believes he has broken the American will, for which he sees two pieces of evidence. The first is that there seems to be very little American resolve to do anything about punishing Iran for the enormous traffic of weapons, poisons, and terrorists into Iraq from Iran. Khamenei must inclined to believe that the Bush administration has no stomach for confrontation.

We have done nothing to make the mullahs’ lives more difficult, even though there is abundant evidence for Iranian involvement in Iraq, most including their relentless efforts to kill American soldiers. The evidence consists of first-hand information, not intelligence reports. Scores of Iranian intelligence officers have been arrested, and some have confessed. Documentary evidence of intimate Iranian involvement with Iraqi terrorists has been found all over Iraq, notably in Fallujah and Hilla. But the "intelligence" folks at the Pentagon, led by the hapless Secretary Stephen Cambone, seem to have no curiosity, as if they were afraid of following the facts to their logical conclusion: Iran is at war with us.

In early March, to take one recent example, several vehicles crossed from Iranian Kurdistan into Iraqi Kurdistan. The Iraqis stopped them. There was a firefight. The leader of the intruding group was captured and is now in prison, held by one of the Kurdish factions. The Kurds say that the vehicles contained poison gas, which they have in their possession. They say they informed the Turks, who said they did not want to know anything about it (the Turks don’t want anything to do with the Kurds, period, and they shrink from confrontation with the mullahs).

The Kurds holding this man say that he confessed to working for the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. Apparently they have his confession. They say they are willing to make him available to U.S. military personnel. But the Pentagon, which has all this information, has not pursued the matter. This is just one of many cases in which the Iranians believe they see the Americans running away from confrontation.

The second encouraging sign for Khamenei is the barely concealed delight in Washington, including Secretary Rice’s recent statement at a press conference, that we will soon be negotiating with Iran about Iraq. This mission has been entrusted to Ambassador Khalilzad, who previously worked with the Iranians when he represented us in Kabul. It is a bad decision, and it is very hard to explain. The best one can say is that Khalilzad speaks Farsi, so he will know what they are saying, and it is probably better to have public dealings than the secret contacts this administration has been conducting all along. But those small bright spots do not compensate for the terrible costs the very announcement of negotiations produces for us, for the Iranian people, and for the region as a whole.

Talk Does Not Thwart
Iran has been at war with us for 27 years, and we have discussed every imaginable subject with them. We have gained nothing, because there is nothing to be gained by talking with an enemy who thinks he is winning. From Khamenei’s standpoint, the only thing to be negotiated is the terms of the American surrender, and he is certainly not the only Middle Eastern leader to take this view; most of the leaders in the region dread the power of the mullahs — now on the doorstep of nuclear military weapons — and they see the same picture as Khamenei: America does nothing to thwart Iran, and is now publicly willing to talk. In like manner, many Iranians will conclude that Bush is going to make a deal with Khamenei instead of giving them the support they want and need to challenge the regime.

If this administration were true to its announced principles, we would be actively supporting democratic revolution in Iran, but we do not seem to be serious about doing that. Yes, Secretary Rice went to Congress to ask for an extra $75 million to "support democracy" in Iran, but the small print shows that the first $50 million will go to the toothless tigers at the Voice of America and other official American broadcasters, which is to say to State Department employees. The Foreign Service does not often drive revolutionary movements; its business is negotiating with foreign governments, not subverting them. There were whispers that we were supporting trade unions in Iran, which would be very good news, but such efforts should be handled by private-sector organizations, not by the American government per se.

Yet this seems a particularly good moment to rally to the side of the Iranian people, who are known to loathe the regime of Ayatollah Khamenei, and who are showing their will to resist in very dramatic fashion. About ten days ago, seventy-eight regime officials were killed or captured in Baluchistan when a convoy (including the chief of the region’s Revolutionary Guards Corps and the regional governor) was attacked. Some of the captives have been shown on al-Jazeera, pleading for cooperation from the regime, and supporting their captors’ demands that five Baluchi prisoners be freed. The regime has responded by accusing the United States and Britain of masterminding the operation, which is the second such strike in the past six months. In addition to calling for the release of Baluchi prisoners, the insurgents are calling for the toleration of Baluchi Sunnis, the appointment of locals (instead of Persian Shiites) to govern the region, and the use of local radio and television.

Caring about Carnage
The situation in Kurdistan is likewise extremely tense. The city of Mahabad is now surrounded by the regime’s military and paramilitary forces, following the eruption of anti-regime demonstrations on the occasion of Persian New Year’s celebrations on March 20. It is impossible to get precise figures — Western journalists don’t seem to be able to cover such events — but dozens of Kurds were arrested and many more were beaten up in the streets.

Worst of all is the ongoing campaign of ethnic cleansing directed against the Ahwaz Arabs in Khuzestan, where up to three divisions of the army, the Revolutionary Guards, and the infamous thugs of the Basij have been deployed, following the sabotage of a major oil pipeline by anti-regime dissidents. Radio Farda, our official Farsi-language station, quoted a local journalist, Mr. Mojtaba Gehestani, who says that 28,000 Ahwazi Arabs have been jailed in the past ten months, hundreds have been summarily executed, and many corpses have been fished out of the Karoon River, with telltale marks of torture.

Nonetheless, the regime’s interior minister recently announced that there is no "ethnic problem or issue" in Iran today. But he has quite clearly failed to convince President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that all is well. The president cancelled trips to the region four times in the past few months.

He and his cronies have a lot to worry about, because the Iranian people, in the face of a vicious wave of repression that recalls the worst moments of this dreadful regime, are showing themselves prepared to stand against it, and to move to remove it. Lacking a full picture, we should base our judgment at least in part on the behavior of the mullahs, and their dispatch of so many armed forces to three different regions suggests they are profoundly worried. This is not a good time to throw the mullahs a diplomatic lifeline. We should instead show them and their democratic enemies that the tide of history is running against them.

It’s time to take action against Iran and its half-brother Syria, for the carnage they have unleashed against us and the Iraqis. We know in detail the location of terrorist training camps run by the Iranian and Syrian terror masters; we should strike at them, and at the bases run by Hezbollah and the Revolutionary Guards as staging points for terrorist sorties into Iraq. No doubt the Iraqi armed forces would be delighted to participate, instead of constantly playing defense in their own half of the battlefield. And there are potent democratic forces among the Syrian people as well, as worthy of our support as the Iranians.

Once the mullahs and their terrorist allies see that we have understood the nature of this war, that we are determined to promote regime change in Tehran and Damascus, and will not give them a pass on their murderous activities in Iraq, then it might make sense to talk to Khamenei’s representatives. We could even expand the agenda from Iraqi matters to the real issue: we could negotiate their departure, and then turn to the organization of national referenda on the form of free governments, and elections to empower the former victims of a murderous and fanatical tyranny that has deluded itself into believing that it is invincible.

- Michael Ledeen, an NRO contributing editor, is most recently the author of The War Against the Terror Masters. He is resident scholar in the Freedom Chair at the American Enterprise Institute.

WASHINGTON - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Tuesday that Iran was a menace for reasons other than its alleged drive to build a nuclear bomb and that the U.S. and its allies have "a number of tools" if Tehran does not change its ways.

"I think there's no doubt that Iran is the single biggest threat from a state that we face," Rice told a Senate panel.

She claimed strong international backing for the U.S. position that Iran must not be allowed to continue what she claimed is a covert effort to gain bomb-making expertise and technology.

"We need now to broaden that thinking and that coalition, not just to what Iran is doing on the nuclear side but also what they're doing on terrorism," Rice said. "Those are some of the discussions that I have with these same states."

She repeated claims that Iran is meddling in Iraq, bankrolling terrorism in Lebanon and the Palestinian territories and repressing its people.

"We have a number of tools, I think, at our disposal, including in sharpening the contradiction between the Iranian people and a regime that does not represent them," Rice said. The $75 million that has been requested to promote democracy in Iran could be used for that fight, she said.

Options could include other measures at the U.N. Security Council to "further isolate the Iranian government," Rice said.

She did not elaborate. The reference could cover a variety of international punishments that the United States has said it would not seek as a first option. Russia and China, allies of Iran with veto power in the council, have said they oppose penalizing Iran.

The council soon may hand the United States a partial victory after weeks of deadlock. Its permanent members were making progress toward a written rebuke of Iran over its nuclear program; Iran insists the program is intended only to produce electricity.

Late Tuesday, Britain and France, backed by the United States, circulated among council members their latest draft of a proposed statement. The draft makes significant concessions to Russia and China, though diplomats said differences remain.

The council planned to meet Wednesday to discuss the draft.

At the Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing, Rice was not asked about the potential for a U.S. or international military strike against Iran. The Bush administration says that option remains on the table in theory, but it is pursuing only diplomatic solutions now.

The United States has had no diplomatic relations with Iran since the 1979 storming of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran.

Washington long accused the clerical government of exporting terrorism. European nations, Russia, China and others have diplomatic, trade and other ties to Iran. Rice suggested that at least some allies will agree to try to isolate Iran if the nuclear standoff continues.

Russia and China allowed Iran's case to move to the Security Council this month, which was seen as a diplomatic success for the United States. Since then, however, those nations opposed draft versions of the written rebuke.

"We've been able to bring the Russians along to a degree but we've had to work harder on that and on the Chinese," Rice said.

She suggested that the hardline leader Iran elected last year is his own worst enemy, noting that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has made fiercely anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli statements.

UNITED NATIONS - The five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council agreed on a statement Wednesday demanding that Iran suspend uranium enrichment, setting the stage for the first action by the powerful body over fears that Tehran wants a nuclear weapon.

"The adoption today by the UN Security Council of a Presidential Statement on Iran is an important diplomatic step," Rice said in a statement.
"It demonstrates that the international community is united in its concern over Iran's nuclear program," Rice said shortly before she was to depart for meetings in Europe on the Iran nuclear issue.
"Iran is more isolated now than ever. The Security Councils Presidential Statement sends an unmistakable message to Iran that its efforts to conceal its nuclear program and evade its international obligations are unacceptable."

Rice added that the international community expects Iran to comply with the International Atomic Energy Agency's call to suspend its uranium enrichment-related activities and to return to negotiations.

The full 15-member council backed a watered-down text worked out among the five veto-wielding permanent members that requested a report in 30 days from the IAEA director on Iranian compliance with the steps required by the IAEA board.

'A troublesome regime'
While U.N. diplomacy is expected to focus on the Iranian nuclear issue, Rice predicted the ministers would discuss Iran's support of Palestinian terrorist groups, its interference in Lebanon and Syria and inflammatory rhetoric from President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. She said it all shows the current regime "is a troublesome regime for peace and stability in the Middle East."

Rice called Iran's nuclear strategy a "salami" tactic, referring to how Tehran continued to change its ambitions slice by slice.

"First it was just going to be conversion," she said. "Then it was just going to be a small scale R and D (research and development), then it was going to be about centrifuge production. So I don't see Iran particularly constrained by the fact that the IAEA continues to operate in Iran right now.

"If Iran makes that threat and carries through on it then we will have a better view of what Iran's intentions really are," she said.

Rice was met in Berlin by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and she's also scheduled to meet with French President Jacques Chirac during a brief stop in Paris.

She then travels to Liverpool and Blackburn, England, where she will visit the home district of British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw. The trip will reciprocate Straw's visit to Rice's hometown in Alabama last October.

French President Jacques Chirac kisses the hand of US state secretary Condoleezza Rice after a meeting at the Elysee Palace in Paris. Rice is in Paris for talks as part of a lightning tour of European capitals for consultations on Iran.(AFP/Patrick Kovarik)

I find myself in a myth-busting mode again, due to a certain lapse in proper syntax used by reporters and others in describing "negotiation" or "talks" between the US and Iran regarding concerns in Iraq.

In fact there is no barganing or bartering involved regarding the Iraqi's future.

The role the US ambassador has been authorised to persue is one of simply expressing the various concerns the US has regarding regime activities, not engaging in debate.

in short the diference is like that of simply presenting facts, with evidence to back it up, rather than hagling over a price of a melon at a market.....

In fact Cyrus, most of what is of concern applies to direct violation of various UN resolution on Iraq by the government of Iran, it's support for illegal militias , violations of Iraqi soveregnity, stability, and contribution to sectarian unrest by the IRI.

This presentation followed by a request to cease and desist, forthwith, or other measures to ensure that would be taken up in the proper fora.

As there seems to be a great deal of misunderstanding about this, being evidently taken to be some kind of appeasement on the US part...I find it again nessesary to correct the errors found on this thread....for the record.

QUESTION: Just on the -- is there any update at all on the direct talks with
Iran over Iraq?

MR. ERELI: No, no.

QUESTION: None at all?

MR. ERELI: No.

QUESTION: Can I segue then to --

MR. ERELI: And again, direct talks makes it sound as if we're negotiating the
fate of Iraq. The fact is what these would be, were they to take place, would
be Zal [Zalmay] Khalilzad meeting with Iranian officials in Baghdad to convey
our concerns about Iranian activities in Iraq. That is, I think, the way to
characterize any such potential meeting, the way we did with -- the way Zal did
when he was Ambassador in Afghanistan, the way our Ambassador Afghanistan can
do, should the need arise, rather than talks because that implies that somehow
we are negotiating the future of Iraq, which isn't the case at all.

Note: Folks may wish to review the full transcript....reaction to Iran missile tests ...etc. I'm being topic specific in this one excerpt cited here.

Cyrus, Again, I think it would be well worth your time to subscribe to DOS listserve , so that when an issue like this comes up, you have a direct source of info to draw from, rather than an indirect source of reporting that interprets the facts in some article that risks distortion of the facts.

It's free, and would probably save you a whole lot of grief and confusion at times....as well as the general reader, who would still be thinking the US is playing footsie with the mullah without my post here....bottom line is that I can't be around all the time to do this for you....it's your site, and presenting the facts is up to you.....

Going to the same source as the press does pretty well cuts out the middle man.....

On another note after reading through a few of your points above I would suggest to those who may actually seek to get miltary or other training that the US Dept of State, the CIA, and US military are actively seeking those who speak Farsi, (among other languages) and can qualify (age, physical, and background checks among those parameters).

There are legal issues surrounding the formation of a paramilitary org on US soil (whether via US sanctioned Congressional act or not).

I would very much doubt that US law would permit the kind of suggestions included in this vein you have proposed Cyrus, so I have offered the alternative above for those that would consider it.